Beverage bottles are often packaged in neck clip carriers, particularly large plastic bottles which have a flange or collar on the neck just below the bottle cap. Openings in the bottom of the carrier receive the upper portions of the bottles, while the lower edges of bottle neck openings in the sloped side panels engage the underside of the bottle flanges to support the bottles during lifting and carrying. While neck clip carriers provide an economical means for packaging and carrying bottles, it can at times be difficult to remove a bottle from the package. Because the carriers are clipped tightly on the bottles, their side panels cannot readily be pulled apart to move the flange support edges away from the flanges, making it necessary to tear the side panels beneath the flange support edges. The thick paperboard or the two-ply design often used to impart strength to the carriers can be quite difficult to tear.
To overcome this problem carriers have been designed with tear-away sections immediately beneath the flange support edges. One approach, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,180,191, employs a two-ply design, with aligned tear-away sections in the layers forming one of the side panels. Although this provides access to the bottles, the structural integrity of the carrier is at risk if one or both of the overlying tear-away sections were to prematurely fail due to lifting and carrying stresses. Another approach, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,318,476, also employs a two-ply design, with the outer ply incorporating a tear-away section and the underlying layer including an easily severed cut line. This arrangement also is subject to carrier failure since both of the paperboard layers beneath the flange support edges are weakened in the flange area.
It is an object of the invention to provide a neck clip carrier which allows easy access to the bottles without compromising the structural integrity of the carrier. Another object is to provide a neck clip carrier of this type which permits use of a handle panel for ease of carrying.